I am a middle child sandwiched between homicide and schizophrenia. This is our true story.

Day 19 – morning

I guess I’m a person who works under pressure. Since I have three invites for the next three days I decided to get busy this morning. I’m up to 26 1/2 chapters now having written 2 1/2 more just this morning, before noon!

I started writing about the jail house snitch that Michael was trying to hire for a copycat murder or murderS. Then moved on to the female witnesses who came forward detailing their own encounters with the brothers with the same MO–marriage, money, etc.

Then the memory of something very profound and deep that happened to me the very last day of Michael’s sentencing – actually the day he was sentenced to death–in the courtroom. I hadn’t visited that memory in years.

Then I made a really healthy smoothie. I’m rockin and rollin so I can go out with my hostess tonite for wine and not feel like I’m wasting precious time. Just six more full days til John comes! Then I don’t think I’ll be doing much more writing after that. 😉

Some excerpts from this morning so far:

DM: Okay. Well after he told me you all didn’t have all the evidence and all this stuff, what was the best thing for him to do and I told him that they probably didn’t have no causes, they just, you know, kick you out of jail. I think he said his Court was coming up in April, his trial’s coming up in April, just kick you out after your trial, you don’t go no evidence, uh you’ll probably beat it, had asked me which was the best, should he have a Jury trial or should he just go in front of the Judge. Yeah, I believe you ought to go to a Jury trial, that’s the way I always did mine, you know, I htink you got more people judging your cases instead of just one man and he said, you know what I think, I think the best thing for me to do is get somebody to kill somebody just like I did my wife. I said you get somebody to do it like you did your wife, I said what, what happened and he said, uh, well her throat was cut, she was stabbed, uh, once in the heart and twice in the back on the heart side and, he said if I knew somebody that could do that for me, I’ll pay them four hundred thousand dollars and then he said, could you do it. I said, yeah, I could do it, he said, yeah, you look strong enough to do it, he says I need somebody like you to do this and I thought he was playing and he said uh, you know the money won’t be no problem, I said it won’t uh, then he reached up under his bunk and he pulled out, I guess like uh, insurance forms…

Michael Apelt managed through much of his initial jail incarceration, to keep a hold of papers related to Cindy’s insurance policies, sequestered under his mattress like some kind of security blanket. He flashed those around as needed while attempting to secure copycat murders “on the outside” in an attempt to exonerate himself.

And then this:

I had a perfect view of Michael as they brought him in clad in the jail’s orange jumpsuit, sandles and shackles–both wrist and ankle. It was the first time I had seen him like that, ever. In the trial, he was shackled inside his pants with some kind of device that made it impossible for him to run–it caused him to walk with a limp and a straight leg. Whatever was strapped to his one leg was clearly very heavy.

I watched him, knowing this was very likely the last time I’d ever lay eyes on him ever again. I watched him awkwardly sit down. I watched his always present interpreter hand him the headphones he wore daily in court. I saw him pick them up with his manacled hands tethered together at the wrist.

What happened next is one of those events you will never quite catch the essence of in either telling it much less writing it. It was a miracle of sorts that occurred in my heart that day.

I watched this man, this monster, this killer who had inflicted the most trauma in to my life that I would ever endure for the rest of it suddenly morph. As he nervously picked up that singular arch of the headphones, he realized he literally could not get them on his head being handcuffed like that. A simple act he’d been performing effortlessly for weeks on end suddenly was impossible to perform. The entirety of his fate became manifest to me in that one self-conscious moment.

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3 thoughts on “Day 19 – morning”

I heard Sunny Schwartz, a prison activist, say on the radio yesterday (she was part of a program that brought victims and perpetrators together) “They act monstrously but they aren’t monsters.” She said a grandmother said this about the man who murdered her daughter and grandson. Your view of him and his shackles was very moving.

I may spend the rest of my life sorting out that one. I don’t know what puts a person in the “monster” category. I do know I had a moment of forgiveness that day. And I don’t know how you could do a programlike that with murderers who never admit to the crime, show no remorse and are devoid generally of conscience. I’d sign up for it in a heartbeat if that wasn’t the case but, as in Jodi Arias, we’ve basically seen the opposite. I do appreciate these programs though and what you wrote! More to this story of course will come out in the book. 🙂

Congrats on All those chapters!!! THAT is a lot!!! You are definitely a girl who sets goals and gets things done. Quite admirable. It will be FUN for you to celebrate and explore the area with your fiance.